Buckling and wrinkling from geometric and energetic viewpoints

Abstract

We discuss shape profiles emerging in inhomogeneous growth of squeezed tissues. Two approaches are used simultaneously: i) conformal embedding of two-dimensional domain with hyperbolic metrics into the plane, and ii) a pure energetic consideration based on the minimization of the total energy functional. In the latter case the non-uniformly pre-stressed plate, which models the inhomogeneous two-dimensional growth, is analyzed in linear regime under small stochastic perturbations. It is explicitly demonstrated that both approaches give consistent results for buckling profiles and reveal self-similar behavior. We speculate that fractal-like organization of growing squeezed structure has a far-reaching impact on understanding cell proliferation in various biological tissues.